St. Cloud jumped up 31 spots to 24th on this year's Forbes ranking of the best small places for business and careers. Fargo, North Dakota, ranked No. 1. Mankato was No. 3 and Rochester No. 23.

St. Cloud has jumped into the top 25 on the 16th annual Forbes ranking of best small places for business and careers. The list, which came out this week ranked St. Cloud at No. 24 among the 184 small cities listed.

That's 31 spots higher than St. Cloud's ranking in 2013.

Fargo, North Dakota, topped this year's list after ranking No. 2 last year. Mankato moved up seven spots to No. 3. Rochester rose 12 spots to No. 23. No other Minnesota cities were listed.

"It's pretty affirming to the anecdotal evidence we're seeing in the area," said Patti Gartland, president of the Greater St. Cloud Development Corp., an organization that includes more than 100 regional business and community leaders.

"It also speaks to what a lot of folks have been working on in our region, the public-private partnerships we've seen flourish," she said. "And it helps underneath it all that we're a regional health care center. That provides a lot of employment for us."

Health care and agriculture were listed as the primary industries in Central Minnesota, according to Forbes. Its rankings are based on 12 metrics relating to job growth, costs of business and living, income growth over five years, educational attainment and projected economic growth through 2016.

Net migration patterns during the past five years, cultural and recreational opportunities, and the number of highly ranked colleges based on Forbes' annual college rankings also are factored into the ratings.

St. Cloud ranked 49th in job growth and 63rd in cost of doing business and education. Last year, St. Cloud ranked 124th in cost of doing business, 77th in education and 67th in job growth.

"We've made a lot of changes in recent years in how we do economic development," St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis said. "From the city's perspective, we know we aren't the ones creating jobs but we can help create a climate for growth. We've tried to streamline development processes so that, if nothing else, we're in no way a hindrance."

Kleis cited an ability to hold the line on property taxes as one way to keep businesses energized.

According to Forbes, our gross metro product was $10.3 billion, with a median household income of $51,968 — up 0.3 percent — and a median home price of $129,400 — an increase of 7.9 percent, by far the most of the past five years. Cost of living was 9.9 percent below the national average and more than 25 percent of the population had gone to college.

"I think back to the 1990s and then after Fingerhut went bankrupt and the burden that put on our workforce," Kleis said. "We've diversified our economy since then, especially in banking and health care, so that when something closes it doesn't have as much of a far-reaching impact as it once did."

Surrounding areas also figured into the rankings. For example, St. Cloud's population for the Forbes survey was listed as 192,200 — an increase of 1,500 from 2013 that includes other area communities. Cities on the list had populations ranging from 54,000 to 258,000.

Mankato, with a survey population of 98,900, ranked 20th in education, 27th in cost of doing business and 59th in job growth. It had a GMP of $5.3 billion and median household income of $53,133.

Rochester, with a population of 191,300, ranked 16th in education, 42nd in job growth and 169th in cost of doing business. It had a GMP of $10.2 billion and a median household income of $63,999.

"The economy in recent years has probably been doing better in just about every community," said Teresa Bohnen, who has been president of the St. Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce since 1998. "The fact that we seem to be moving up on the list means we're doing the right things."